Sea of Tranquility Reveiw

Book Review

The Sea of Tranquility  Feb. 9th  

by: Katja Millay

★★★★ 4 Stars

         

Blurb: Former piano prodigy Nastya Kashnikov wants two things: to get through high school without anyone learning about her past and to make the boy who took everything from her—her identity, her spirit, her will to live—pay.

Josh Bennett’s story is no secret: every person he loves has been taken from his life until, at seventeen years old, there is no one left. Now all he wants is be left alone and people allow it because when your name is synonymous with death, everyone tends to give you your space.

Everyone except Nastya, the mysterious new girl at school who starts showing up and won’t go away until she’s insinuated herself into every aspect of his life. But the more he gets to know her, the more of an enigma she becomes. As their relationship intensifies and the unanswered questions begin to pile up, he starts to wonder if he will ever learn the secrets she’s been hiding—or if he even wants to.

*ARC Provided by NetGalley for an honest Review*

Intense. Sea of Tranquility is an intense, emotional ride that will leave you guessing and in as much pain as the characters. It seems like all these characters do is suffer and most of their suffering is self-inflicted after each deals with tragedy.
 Sea of Tranquility offers both main character points of view and sometimes the crossover is very frustrating because though we as readers know how each character feels no one ever speaks the truth always skirts around the issues. 

To say Nastya and Josh have a hard life is putting it mildly. Each feels so beat down and as if they are just passing the days by with no end in sight for no comprehensible reason. Sometimes the self guilt and pity these two can be exhausting. Nastya thinks she's nothing but a lost-cause and even readers are left in the dark about her situation until the end.

Nastya is a very unique girl, who after suffering a traumatic event moves an hour away with her aunt in order to escape her reality. She changes her name and look so her outward appearance is the opposite of the real her. She pushes herself to the limit and expects nothing but the worst. She does have a unique hobby in name collecting, in which she finds the meaning in each name in hope that each name accurate portrays and describes that person.

The writing style offers a refreshing look into the mind of 18 year olds and the imagery is perfectly reflective of their age and times. Katja Millay introduced a unique and gifted writing style, that brings scenes to life, with riveting artistic descriptions, that help lessen the depressing edge within the book.

Sometimes I felt like Nastya and Josh were more unsure of each-other than themselves. At times they tip toe around with only their negative thoughts and angry dispositions and other times they are looking at each other like long lost loves. Occasionally Josh would have his di*k moments when he would think or do something shitty, but, as said before their lives were anything but perfect and pain is really all they know. And boy, do they know how to hurt one another. 

It's sad at times to see how depressed these characters are. Nastya more than Josh. Her mind is so focused on her trauma that it consumes her life. Rarely does she have normal teenage girl thoughts and even wonders why instead of thinking about her future, she's inquiring as to why she even has/deserves one. 

Having said all this, I don't think Nastya or Josh are weak. However, they think they are. This book is definitely all about depression. I felt the lingering effects of it when I was done. 

The end is a bit sudden with so much going on beforehand it seems like a sudden wrap up. Though like Nastya's obsession with only eating sugar-based food, everyone including the book had to crash at some point.
Overall The Sea of Tranquility was a emotional ride that had you as afraid, sad and scared as the characters and you can't help but hope they overcome their issues in the end. Would recommend for those 18+ mostly due to some of the decisions the characters make as well as some graphic scenes.